dynamic elf

For many years, I had a wonderful high-intensity job, doing things I was awesome at: making magic out of minimal resources, growing and developing people along paths they were meant to go down, becoming a trusted advisor and confidante to customers and helping them solve thorny problems. Making systems that removed roadblocks rather than adding them. Solving problems once the RIGHT way so that they never needed to be solved again. All that good shit.

Then, as many-but-not-all-of-you know, that situation changed. I'm not going to get into that here, but ( here's some backstory. )

I wound up having coffee with someone who I'll describe, for storytelling purposes, as a gruff magical elf, who said, "you seem nice. Want to come work for me? I ride a bicycle and there's coffee. Also I'm from Maine." I've heard worse offers in my life.

This elf, who we will not name because it gets awkward quickly, had a job that he loved: making magic out of minimal resources, growing and developing people along paths they were meant to go down, and being a trusted advisor and confidante to customers to help them solve thorny problems. The only problem was, he had a bit too MUCH job, so, he said, it seemed like a good idea to give some of it to me.

I said yes, because who says no to an elf? Not me.

So I spent a while quietly trying to make order out of chaos wherever he pointed me, and mostly doing okay at it. But to be honest, most of my time has been spent putting distance between me and the bad things that made me feel worthless, not positively pursuing any particular vision. And even when I'm asleep on my feet, and trying not to cry, and kinda just trying to stay out of the hospital, I'm a pretty decent warm body in a chair, so nobody fired me. Or even told me I dress funny.

But I did say this guy was a magical elf, and one of the tricks he is particularly good at is lovingly calling me on my self-negating bullshit. I have a lot of self-negating bullshit, so that's not a small task, but I think he's not really a small-task kind of elf.

And that brings us to the whole point of this post, which is to tell you what the elf told me today in the five minutes between a long meeting and our respective bike rides home, which doesn't seem like much time but which was enough to make a seemingly offhanded set of observations that made me tear up a bit.

He said:

You know, you're good at your job. Anything I ask you if you can do, you say "yes I can!", without hesitation. And this whole thing you have going, where you say, yes, I can do anything you ask, right now, backwards and in high heels? It's a good thing, I like it.

But here's what I see. I see that sometimes there are some problems that make you light up inside to talk about. And these problems, the ones you fall in love with solving? Basically none of them are in your job description.

I think you need a new job description.

And I think your willingness to say "yes I can" and your competence, they're getting in your way. Because what you're not answering is: do you WANT to do the thing? Is this a problem you're going to fall in love with solving? Because those are the problems I want to give you. I think you'll be happier.

And he said:

The whole reason I brought you on was so that you could take a third of my job away from me, and I have NEVER cared which third.

But YOU should care which third.

When you started, I gave you a part of my job that seemed interesting. But I think there are some things over in a different part of my job which I'm OK at, but which you would be AMAZING at. And you should probably stop saying yes to everything and just find the things you'd love and do those instead.

And if you can't figure out what you want directly, and if you need to pretend that it is as a favor to me that you find those things rather than finding them in service to your own desires, fine, I'm here for that fiction, but, like, do it already.

It's a healing thing to hear, is what I'm saying. Coming out of a situation that was full of mistrust and bullshit and landing accidentally in a situation where the biggest feedback I've gotten was "sure, you do your job great, but what if it was all different so you liked it more because you deserve to like things" is... disorienting.

But thank you, elf, for saving my ass.

+ Cafe near my office sells hot grits in the morning!
- The tub next to them apparently contains margarine, and now so do I
++ Ran a 5k on Sunday
- Stressed my knee a little bit
++++ Biked to the start
( more good and bad )
+ Looking out the window at a dude in a rowboat in the sun, on the river, which is sparkling with reflected light, and feeling - just in this moment - simple and happy.

[Poll #1604560]

Note: when I say "bring", if you usually eat lunch at home, substitute "eat". I meant this poll to be for everyone, not just office workers. :)

I can see three capsized sailboats from this room. Guess it's windy on the Charles today...

I am applying for jobs. Part of what I do is project management. Should I be PMI certified, or does nobody care?

In other news, the Hahvahd job I was working toward for months and months got to a point where everyone involved was really excited about me and they called to ask for my references one morning and then THAT DAY there was a big layoff and a 30-day hiring freeze on open positions while they figured out if laid off personnel fit any of the open jobs... and 29 days later I got the call that they were extremely sorry but someone else would be taking that position but blah blah blah I'm totally awesome and please keep applying and if I ever need a good word put in for me for a job at the university let them know. So pooh. I'm tired of fawning rejections, especially ones where everyone relevant loves me but upper management says no.

As far as I can tell, Natalie has three beliefs about my job:

(1) There are dogs,
(2) Someone at work took my computer and won't give it back, and
(3) I eat french fries every day.

#1 and #2 are not true, but I see why she thinks them: she came to my holiday party and there were indeed dogs, and my OLD job gave me a laptop whereas the new one does not. But the french fries? No idea.

Quitting my job has changed my brain. It's wild -- music catches me in a way it hasn't in a long time, and sticks in my ear. I'm singing to N all the time, and seeing shadows and shiny things everywhere. And it's snowing, and dammit, that makes me happy.

So, share an mp3! Please! Give me a bit of music that will get lodged in my head and stick around far longer than it has any right to. Put it in comments and let other people have it, too. Tell me something good, or show me a photo that you took, or something that caught your eye and made your day.

Let's say you're the hiring manager for a non-customer-facing technical position, and your workplace is somewhat laid back, but not quite foosball tables in the bathrooms laid back. Further, let's say you interview someone for a position and they basically knock your socks off on the phone, but when they come in for an in-person interview, despite knocking even more socks, they turn out to have BRIGHT ORANGE HAIR.

[Poll #1064663]

I know what I'm going to do, but I'm curious what other people think I should do.

( a qualified success )

( And a little bit about work. ) Also, fabric of the day: knit silk jersey. Holy crap, can I wear that every day?

Anyway, here I am: I ran a triathlon yesterday, read a whole book in one evening just because I wanted to, had a full night's sleep, and made friends with my new customer. I'm in a pretty damn good mood.

Put out pizza in the office kitchen, and no matter how much there is, it will all be gone in less than 45 minutes.

Put out a spread of barbecue, and within an hour, everything is gone but some cornbread and greens.

Put out a tray of cut vegetables, and it stays there all day.


I think I'm the only one eating the grape tomatoes! How can that be?